中西龙文化差异

A Comparative Study of the Dragon Image in

Western and Eastern Culture

2013.湖南师范大学英本一班周才贵

Abstract：This thesis firstly compares the dragon culture and its historical process respectively in western and eastern countries, then gets the conclusion, although they are both the fake things that come from imagination, but they aren’t(are not )equal. They are with different cultural origination, images and the duties in legends, their symbolized meanings are also different. The dragon in China stands

for the Chinese national spirit and symbols, its cultural content is to some extent from the western dragon. The Chinese dragon is the symbol of mysterious and auspicious. It also stands for the empire right. However, in western countries, dragon stands for greedy and evil; they are considered as the souls that have been dead under the sword of the heroes. Just because of the cultural difference, the western and eastern people find difference in understanding and taking use of the image of dragon. In the communication of the western and eastern world, the Chinese dragon are directly translated into “Dragon”, which c aused the image of the Chinese dragon to be affected, thus, to discuss and research the important role that the dragon plays in western and eastern world while analyzing its effect on their national spirit and cultural life and well master its historical and cultural content will have people to really understand the content of the other culture. This thesis, just start from the historical and cultural origination together with dragon’s imagine and individualisms to analyze the cultural difference of dragon.

Keywords:dragon image cultural difference

Table of Contents

1. Introduction……….

1.1 Background of the study

1.2 Purpose and significance of the study……….

2. Dragon image.

2.1 Image 6

2.2 Dragon image7

2.2.1 Symbolic meaning of the Eastern Dragon image.

2.2.2 Symbolic meaning of the Western Dragon image.

3. Differences between Western and Eastern dragon image (10)

3.1 In Poems 10

3.2 In Legends.11

3.3 In Festivals11

4. Reasons of the differences

4.1

4.2

4.3

4.4

5. Conclusion (14)

Works Cited.

1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

To the image of dragon, which doesn’t really exist, the western and eastern world

is maintaining different attitude to it. Thus different legends, stories were given birth to. In China, dragon is the main symbol of luck in the Chinese national culture. The dragon culture originates so far with much content, which reflect the psychological world of the Chinese nation. The Chinese people call themselves the sons of dragon, in festiva l of the dragon boating day, they would dance a “dragon”1, race the dragon boats. There is also fruit in China called “the dragon eye”(just Litchi chine sis), there is also tea called the dragon well tea, uron tea. The tool for dinner can be called dragon dishes or the dragon cup. However, in the western world, dragon is considered as a kind of fierce and attacking giant animal, the symbol of evil. There are many stories or novels describe just like in a castle, there is an evil dragon, the near people should donate it a young girl each month. In movies, there is also giant dragon like Godzilla. Thus, to understand the different dragon culture in western and the eastern world, we can understand different cultural background so as to learn the sense of dragon more clearly.

1.2 Purpose and significance of the study

The purpose of this study is to analyze clearly respectively the sense and meaning of both western and eastern dragon based on cultural difference. With the analysis about this animal that have been familiar with both western and eastern people, we can know better about the cultural difference between different countries. By researching it, we can experience more about the principles and the structure of cultural difference, so that the communication between different countries may to some extent find some helps.

Presently, the situation of globalization has been more and more common in the whole word, thus we find the need to know more about each other, the first thing that we should pay attention to is the cultural difference. A good method to achieve this is to find some good examples. The dragon can be considered as the best tool to represent the difference on this aspect; this is also the significance of this study.

1This is not really a dragon, just a silk or paper one, which is operated by tens of people to symbolize the luck or the wish toward tomorrow.